The White Tiger: Paradox 2 key examples

Paused on the threshold of carnal delight, Balram turns around. The paradox of this sudden observation lies in the reversed relations between humans and animals. Balram’s appeal to animals turns against their previous connotations of bestiality and predation. In the context of brutish water buffaloes and the unforgiving “jungle” of the Indian streets, the notion of honorable animals seems far-fetched by any stretch of the imagination.

This paradox is as true as it is contradictory. In one sense, the sheer indignity of the prostitute’s working conditions brings out Balram’s better impulses. Rather than arousing sexual desire, the sight of them awakens a deep sympathy instead. Balram feels compassion for the prostitutes who crammed against the window like encaged “parrots.” The animal-like treatment of his fellow humans—and the visceral recoiling at this abuse—unexpectedly provokes “the best thing” within Balram.

But as the novel’s later moments suggest, animal dignity also comes from their lack of human consciousness. They prey upon each other and compete for survival. But they lack the ill-will that motivates the corruption, exploitation, and falsehoods among the humans around him. “Hippos lie in mud and do nothing—that’s their nature,” Balram reasons to Dharam at the zoo. The white tiger preys upon lower species to sustain itself; the Mongoose presses Balram to the car floor for pure humiliation. Defined by natural necessity and devoid of malicious intention, animals may in fact be better than their human counterparts.

The master and servant make their final exchange through an eye contact that turns out to be more like blood contact. The strangeness of this moment makes for unexpected, unusual truths. Balram is physically “blind,” coated with his master’s blood. But for the first time, he is also “free” from wage slavery and oppressive masters.

The master opens his eyes as he dies while the living servant goes blind but continues to live. Ashok’s death scene uses the contrast between its figurative suggestions and literal reality to develop complex, potentially ambiguous readings. Briefly, the moment sketches a possible criticism of Balram’s violent act. In opening his eyes, Ashok somehow realizes his fatal oversight, but too late—Balram meanwhile “blinds” himself in his reckless decision to kill. More probably, though, Ashok simply opens his eyes as he dies while blinding Balram with his blood.

The novel’s treatment of sight draws upon a trove of literary precedent. It speaks to a long classical tradition scattered with figures like Tiresias, who is wise but blind, or Oedipus, blind but rash. Blindness may be the product of tragedy or the precondition of new wisdom. “I have woken up, and the rest of you are sleeping, and that is the only difference between us,” Balram says at the end of the novel, extending the discussion of sight through a parable about the Buddha. Through his attention to eyes and vision, Balram opens multiple, sometimes paradoxical readings within his story.